


Salt

by Eva



Series: Here there be monsters. [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-13
Updated: 2011-10-13
Packaged: 2017-10-24 14:19:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/264455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eva/pseuds/Eva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock wants in on the investigation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Salt

*********

Greg woke up in his suit and shoes. His tie hadn’t even been undone. The sullen red of his alarm clock reading 2:01. AM.

His bed was cold underneath him, although the ease in his muscles let him know he’d slept there. His clothes were cold. Shivering, he sat up and picked at his shoelaces, blinking slow and exaggerated. His eyes felt gritty.

Cold. But he couldn’t see his breath. Greg undressed almost absently, aware of his movements but not thinking about them. His skin was gritty, as if he’d worked out, sweated hard, and hadn’t showered.

Warm yellow light, electric light, streamed from the bathroom. He walked there naked and sat on the edge of the tub, perplexed. It was full, and blessedly hot. Steaming. He trailed his fingers through the clear water and touched one to his lips; salt.

A small glass bowl of rose petals--white. Candles on the sink. Long, white tapers, stuck to the porcelain with their own wax. Lit, but not long. He took his ring off and placed it in his mouth, sucking on it like candy.

More awareness crept in. The mirror on the medicine cabinet, which he kept covered unless he was shaving, was steamed up. Greg stood and put his hand to it, wiping away moisture in one long streak.

“Good morning,” Mycroft said. His voice sounded streaky, oddly stretched. “I prepared your bath.”

He shifted the ring to the inside of his cheek. “I didn’t ask you to.”

“No, it was entirely for my peace of mind.”

He couldn’t see anything in the mirror, just a film of grey and blue, shifting like waves. It wasn’t comforting.

“I hope you haven’t been so distracted digging out my soaps that you haven’t kept an eye on Sherlock,” Greg said, ignoring the urge to cross his arms over his chest. As if Mycroft hadn’t had an eyeful already, he was sure.

He almost felt Mycroft’s sigh, and shivered again. “He’ll be ‘round tomorrow. You’ve received several texts to that effect. Now be a good boy and bathe, Gregory.”

“No tricks,” Greg said, picking up his razor. Mycroft’s soft hum of acknowledgement--not agreement--was cut off abruptly as Greg nicked his thumb, and made a smear of blood on the mirror’s surface.

He liked his privacy.

*********

The sheer weight of Sherlock’s stare pulled him from sleep at--he checked the alarm--5:57 AM.

“I lock it for a reason,” he grumbled, sitting up and rubbing at his left eye. It didn’t want to open.

“You haven’t called me in,” Sherlock said, sitting neatly in the chair he’d brought in with him from the kitchen. The light from the street reflected in his eyes.

It wasn’t that Sherlock was helpless. Far from it, even high, even sick unto death. But he was brilliant, sharp and chilly as a fucking diamond, and if you wanted anyone in the world on your side it was Sherlock Holmes.

Well. If you were innocent.

“I’m not going to,” Greg said bluntly, sticking his chin out. They’d have it out here and now, then.

“You’re going to let the murderer walk. Again.”

Greg twitched, even though he’d known it was coming. He hated the fucker sometimes. Justice was all fine and good and fucking theoretical, except that it wasn’t at all for Sherlock, and didn’t he wish he could still have that, not a faint hope in the nearest approximation?

Sherlock, who thought himself cynical. Who didn’t have a fucking clue.

“You’re not welcome. Parents don’t want anyone not police in this.” Greg raised his hand and talked over Sherlock, who was starting to speak. “No. Don’t say a fucking word. They don’t want you in. You think I didn’t offer? They don’t want you and you have got to respect that.”

Sherlock’s face twisted in disgust. “Respect their ignorance--”

“Respect their right to let as few people know about what happened to their daughter as possible,” Greg interrupted. “Sherlock. She’s dead. Her parents have to live with that, have to live with that having happened under their roof and next to their fucking bedroom while they slept. Their little girl.”

“The papers--”

“Have nothing!” Greg cried. “You read, did you, that she was scratched up, bruised up, strangled? She was mutilated, Sherlock, and it happened while she was alive. They have to live with that, too. And they don’t want you, they don’t want anyone who doesn’t have to know, anyone who isn’t official, to know that happened to her. Do you understand that?”

Sherlock was shaking his head tightly. “But the murderer--”

“If this was like your cabbie, I’d push it. Someone in immediate danger. Something like your bomber. But it isn’t. And this family has a right to their privacy, to their grief.” Greg swallowed. “You can’t. Not even just nicking the file from the office, you hear me? You respect me on this, or it’s over.”

Sherlock stared at him. “What’s over?”

“Our association. Respect has to go both ways. We can bend it and test it at times, but this is not that time.” Greg tried to read to Sherlock’s face. He was still as marble. “You’ll let this one go.”

“This murder,” Sherlock said, stressing the second word. The light was in his eyes, and it was fierce.

But Greg wasn’t moved. “This time. For this family. You’ve plenty of other victims to avenge. Don’t get high and mighty with me on this, when you’d pass up another for being boring.”

Sherlock stood and whirled about, stalking out of the room. Greg got up hurriedly and put on his dressing gown, following Sherlock to the front door.

Vibrating with anger. Sherlock stopped halfway out the door, his hand on the side of it. “When I say it’s boring, Lestrade, I mean that someone else could solve it.” His eyes flashed at Greg. “I never mean I don’t care to see it solved.”

He let the door slam shut.

“Shit,” Greg said, with feeling. He leaned against the wall, rested his head against it.

“You did well,” Mycroft said, stepping out of the kitchen. “He’ll stay out of it.”

“You think so.”

Mycroft shrugged, an oddly elegant movement. “He’s angry, and frustrated, but he’ll respect you.”

“Because I’ve earned that,” Greg muttered sarcastically. Sherlock’s final glare was going to stick with him for a while.

“Because you demanded it,” Mycroft said, leaning against the wall opposite Greg. Too close; not close enough. Greg tried to hide the thought. “You know that he gives nothing for free.”

“I’m sure you taught him well.” Greg shifted until his back was to the wall, mirroring Mycroft’s stance. “You’re in my flat again.”

Mycroft raised an eyebrow.

“I should demand your respect.”

“You do,” Mycroft said, his voice soft. Greg tensed.

“I can’t stay away from you. I can’t begin to try.” The hallway felt, suddenly, entirely too close. Mycroft was looking down at the floor, his hands clasped gently in front of him. Light peeked in from the kitchen, warm sunlight, and Mycroft continued. “I want you. If you put out your eyes, if you disfigured your face, I would know you and want you still. At fifty, sixty, seventy, one hundred and two.”

He looked up at Greg, eyes hard and lips tight. “You are the brightest lamp in my sky and when you die, I will be there to swallow your final breath. I will track your every last atom to the ends of the universe and your name will be the only word that falls from my lips.”

Greg blinked hard, felt his stomach churning. “Stop it.”

Mycroft’s gaze, in that moment, was more intimate than a kiss. “I can’t begin to try.”

*********

fin

**Author's Note:**

> Basically I try to sleep and there's more story. Half of this I wrote tucked up in bed at about midnight. Creepiness is going to happen one of these days, I swear it.


End file.
